Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Bang, Zoom! Straight to the Moon!

Yesterday I mentioned that Martian intergalactic space rover thing. Well, little did I know at the time that it was actually a Litespeed:

Presumably NASA are still buying into that "last rover you'll ever buy" titanium hype from the 1990s, which means they'll be "upgrading" to a crabon rover in about six months at the taxpayers' expense. Also, it figures that a bunch of engineering dorks would go with a six-wheeled recumbent:

I'm sure there's at least one guy at NASA who races cyclocross and wears shants who pushed for a custom steel rover from Vanilla ("Dude, let's make it a singlespeed!"), but presumably Sacha White's interminable wait list is too long even for a government agency.

Meanwhile, as the media fixated on the Mars landing, a group of determined retrogrouches finally flew a successful mission to the Moon:

The lugwork on that space cannon is breathtaking, and I hope they packed some good wine in their canvas handlebar bags to wash down that moon cheese.

Also yesterday at least one reader was disappointed(!) with my race walking comments:

Anonymous said...Bike Snob NYC makes fun of race walking? I'm disappointed! Not only old and boring but also stupid.Why don't you next crack hilarious jokes about silly swimmers who use butterfly or back stroke? Would they still refuse to front crawl if they saw a shark approach them?August 8, 2012 3:32 AM

OK, now you're just being silly. Sharks don't live in swimming pools. I mean come on. However, I do wonder what would happen if a shark approached a triathlete during the swim leg, though my best guess is that the triathlete would somehow manage to crash into something, since that's what they tend to do on their bikes. Consider Simon Whitfield's unfortunate crash during the Olympic triathlon, to which I was alerted by Klaus of Cycling Inquisition, among others:

Now, I should point out that Simon Whitfield has sustained a broken collarbone. I'm genuinely sorry to hear that, and I wish him only the best. I also have no intention of mocking his misfortune. At the same time, this is a cycling blog, and I do feel that it's important to address the mankini-clad elephant in the room, which is that triathletes do tend to be a bit, well, crashy. Consider, for example, Whitfield's own explanation for the crash:

"I just hit the speedbump – there’s a speedbump on the course – we’d scouted it, I knew it was there, but I just hit it at exactly the wrong moment, just as I was switching my hands."

You'd never see a road racer do anything like that. Road racers just forget to go right instead:

(Spartacus leading a revolution against turning.)

In another account though, Whitfield attributes the crash not to a change in hand position, but to not having his shoes on yet:Whitfield was trying to slip his bare feet into bike shoes when he veered sharply to the left and was thrown into a barrier lining the course in London's Hyde Park. He also had contact with the front wheel of competitor Leonardo Chacun and the Costa Rican went down."I hit the speed bump just as I went to put my shoe on, I think," Whitfield said. "I'm not quite sure what happened. I hit the speed bump on a funny angle and ended up crowd surfing, which is good for concerts and not so good for sport events."

Which is borne out by the fact that his foot is bare when it comes off the pedal:

And his shoe is still stuck to it:

Which raises an important question:

Should triathletes use clipless pedals at all?

This is not some cheap shot at their bike-handling skills. Rather, it's a legitimate question. Now, you may or may not agree with Grant Petersen's analysis that clipless pedals are useless. However, are the theoretical performance benefits of clipless pedals really worth it in an event like triathlon, when the trade-off seems to be that they have the power to completely undo a competitor, from the Olympic level on down? (Way down.)

Wouldn't it be faster to just jump onto a pair of specially-designed flat pedals while barefoot? Would you really lose that much "power transfer?" Is there any point to fumbling about or crashing because you hadn't managed to work your foot into your shoes yet? Better yet, what about going with adhesive soles? If Simon Whitfield had used flat pedals and a pair of topless sandals, not only might he be wearing a gold medal today, but he'd also go on to revolutionize triathlon in the same way Greg LeMond revolutionized cycling with his time trial helment and aerobars, or Mario Cipollini revolutionized tanning by having his blood replaced with olive oil. But I guess we'll never know.

C'mon, that guy has talent. First he takes out a competitor while his foot is slipping out of his shoe and then instead of watching the road he looks at his pedals while drifting left into the barriers. That is a feat of concentration.

But really, tri folks, stop it, just stop. Your foot's not in your shoe and your going over a bump, do you a) overlap wheels with the guy in front of you, b) move closer to the barriers, c) ensure you have a good grip on the bars and foot placement in time for the bump?

Coulda got top20 but my shoes weren't right and a bunch of cunts passed me, then hit the barriers trying to get back 'in touch' with the cunts. So just skipped the bike part and went straight to the run. What a waste of EPO and T.

Adrian Wiggins: Uranus is just a little bigger than the planet Neptune! Also your cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt,cunt,cunt,cunt,cunt... (from there it devolved into a Monty Pythonesque comedy skit so I went back eating my spotted dick and bowl of boiled entrails until I fell out of my chair trying to adjust my shoe).

Each of those triathletes hit the deck with both shoes off.Should have a rule mandating "shoes on" before takeoff.Unless you want to let Darwinism take it's course and we'll be done with triathletes completely in about 2 generations.

Ah, clipless pedals. I can remember once saying, Huh? How does not having clips make you faster? Then I saw those silly little mangled kitchen-blender parts that freds are conned into attaching to their shoes . . . which are properly called clip-in pedals. Clipless pedals are what your Huffy had when you were a kid.

"Young guys are afraid of women’s bodies. ‘My girlfriend’s having her period, what do I do?’ Fuck her in her period hole, you idiot. What’s the dilemma? I don’t give a shit. If you’re having your period, come on over. I’m 41, I’ll fuck the shit out of you. I’ll drink the blood, let’s party." - Louis CK

Isn't Petersen basically just saying that for bumming around for a few miles you don't need clipless (a term, like unleaded gas, that is well past the point where it it should be retired. Flats and clips. The original foot cage style are so rare you might as well ignore them. If that's his point, fair enough. But then again, if that's the case might as well get a bike from Wal-Mart and skip the expensive stuff he's hawking.

If he's saying you should wear regular shoes and flats on a 40 mile ride, my knees and feet strongly disagree. It's hard to separate the variance between individual days and performance gains from the gear, but at the very least I got a strong placebo effect each time I went clipless. As long as my shoes are tight it's much better.

A local physician dedcided she wanted to do one and inevitably ended up with her shoe laces tightly wrapped around the ol' pedal stud. I think the time loss pushed her out of contention for a top 1500 placing.

Yes, triathletes bike handling skills are tragic, but lets give credit where credit is due. They were the ones that changed cycling with the development of aero bars. Greg Lemond just happened to be the first pro to show the other euro weenies that they were actually beneficial

Sponsored Linkway:

About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!